Slices of Life
by Aiko-chan
Summary: Six drabbles concerning picnics, presents, and cinnamon buns in the bittersweet lives of secret heroes. [Note: The formatting is weird because FFdotnet hates me.]


These are six short pieces written for the Animorphs drabble-writing community on Livejournal. My drabbles tend to spill over into two or three hundred words, but I still call them drabbles for simplicity's sake. The challenges used were alternate-universe, gifts, meetings, red, messages, and food. "Legends" and "Distractions" are set post-series, but the rest could occur generally any time. All characters are the mindbabies of K. A. Applegate.

**Fourth of July**

There are hot-dogs and bowls of coleslaw and those stupid styrofoam plates that snap in half when you try to cut anything on them. And apparently securing napkins under mustard bottles is no use, as Rachel ends up scuttling - amazingly, she even scuttles gracefully - across the grass to retrieve hers and runs into Tom's knees. She looks up, wide-eyed. "Oh God! I'm sorry, Tom."

"No problem." He reaches down and helps her up, and as they stand he looks up to the sky. "Oh, too bad. Little cousin Ashley lost her balloon." Still staring up at the tiny speck of red, he says, "Why don't you go get it, Rachel?"

She laughs. "It's way up in the air. I'd have to fly to reach it."

Then he looks down at her, and his eyes are sharp and narrow. "I know," he says, a faint smirk playing on his lips. Rachel stares back, feels her heart beating faster. Then she clutches her napkin and gives a smooth excuse and turns and walks away slowly, very slowly, and Tom's gaze burns into the back of her head, penetrating and baring all her secrets.

**Perfect Gift**

"The US of A is a melting pot of winter holidays," Marco says. "You've got your Christmas, your Hanukkah, your Kwanzaa, your Boxing Day, and your _Canadian_ Boxing Day. And sometimes Ramadan. And like thirty other things. But to make things simple: Merry Christmas, Ax-man."

Ax accepts the green-and-silver wrapped box gingerly into his weak hands. ‹Cassie said "Christmas" was to honor the birth of one of your gods. Does giving gifts honor him?›

"Sure. Wise men and all that. And good old Saint Nick. The Spirit of Christmas, Ax!" His Andalite friend stares at him, and Marco rolls his eyes. "Just open it."

The paper falls away and Ax's main eyes widen. ‹Cinnabon!› he cries and immediately begins morphing to human.

Marco smirks up at Tobias overhead. "See?" he says. "Perfect gift."

**Legends**

They met in a dream during one of his deep long forgetting sleeps. The sun was in her hair and on her shoulders, and the scent of summer grass was all around them. Her eyes were bright as the clouds swirled across the sky in impossible shapes.

"You don't even know how much you're loved," she said, her voice clear and steady. "You don't even know how much I miss you. You're so beautiful, Jake," she said, reaching out and touching his face, "so beautiful and strong. You never break."

She spread out her fingers and flowers bloomed from her palms, the scent intoxicating and spiraling him back into dreamlessness. "You are a story, cousin," she whispered as the sunlight faded. "You are a legend." And he fell into forgetting knowing she was wrong.

**Evening**

"Ow. Stop pulling my hair."

Cassie put one hand, fingers splayed, on the side of Rachel's head and forced it back to the proper angle. "I have to pull a little bit. Just hold still and it won't hurt as much. Jeez, Rachel, you can deal with your arm being cut off but having a little hair pulled makes you freak out?"

"Hey, I was a grizzly then. And I'm not freaking out. Ow! _Cassie_!"

"I don't even want to hear it."

Sighing noisily, Rachel let it drop. But after a moment she added, "How do you even know how to do this? You're Miss Bird-Pooped-Jeans-And-Practical-Short-Hair."

"My mom. She can't put her hair up herself when she wants to do it up nice, so she made me learn how. It's easier with hers, though. Yours is too long and fine. It keeps slipping out. There." She stuck one more bobby-pin deftly in place, then patted her friend's hair delicately. "That'll hold. And it looks amazing on you." She brushed at Rachel's hips, smoothing down the skirt of the dress she wore; standing behind her in front of the full-length mirror, she cocked her head to one side slightly. "You know I'm not exactly a fashionista or anything. But you look really, really good in red."

Rachel turned a little, trying to get a good view of both her hair and the back of her dress. Two slender hands fussed with the straps. "Mm. It does look nice." Then she looked up, met Cassie's gaze in the mirror. "Do you think he'll like it?" she asked, the slightest shadows of uncertainty present in her voice.

With a little laugh, Cassie said, "In this dress, Rachel, he won't know what to do with you." Rachel raised an eyebrow and put on a little smirk at that, and Cassie grinned and turned her towards the door. "Go."

**McDonald's, 3:36pm**

How long had it been since they had laughed this way? His arms were crossed over his stomach, his belly aching with body-shaking laughter. His head hurt, his face hurt, and it felt wonderful. Rachel was absolutely silent, shoulders trembling, a broad grin on her beautiful face and tears leaking from her eyes, laughing too hard to catch her breath and produce any sound. Even Tobias, always so awkward in human form, was pressing his hands to his abdomen, gasping for air, wheezing out giggles. And he'd said he had forgotten how to laugh like this.

Erek returned, sat down, and pulled the trash-littered tray towards himself. Sliding a straw out of a cup of Sierra Mist, he began to write in a puddle of leftover ketchup. Watching the android's work, Jake saw what Erek was spelling out even before he finished writing; and when Erek pushed the tray over to him, he stared at it even as his laughter died down and his diaphragm relaxed. He looked up at Erek; Erek looked back. Then slowly, purposefully, Jake picked up a napkin and smeared the ketchup, blotting out the writing before any of the others had even noticed it was there.

With Cassie leaning against him, shaking her head and giggling; with Marco literally on the floor, half-beneath the table, still shrieking like a loon; with Ax watching in bewilderment as Rachel collapsed forward on the table-top and let out a cry of laughter, Jake met Erek's calm gaze. And Erek nodded gravely. He got the message. He stood and walked away as though he had never been there; and as Jake turned back to his friends, Rachel kicked Marco under the table and managed through her spasms, "Stop it, they'll kick us out!" And Jake buried all thoughts of evil, of warning, beneath a deep darkness in his mind, covered it over forgetting, and slipped back into a world of fast-food-joint fluorescent lights and belly-laughs.

**Distractions**

"Amazing! Zinnng-uh. The combination of scent and taste! And the textures in the mouth, thow-thuh, of eating and speaking. Ing."

Jake sips his water. "Ambassador Farlisth, shouldn't we be getting to work?"

"Cinnamon buns! Bun-zuh! Prince Aximili gave them no credit." Ambassador Farlisth, in her eerily beautiful human morph, stuffs half a cinnamon bun into her mouth. "Bohn-zfuh!" she cries around her mouthful, closing her eyes in ecstasy. In spite of himself, Jake smiles.


End file.
